Taking a gamble in life

[lastsamurai]

Its tough working on your own...as much as you like the freedom you have to be on the hustle. When i first became a stock broker/financial advisor this was in the year 1999..where you could pretty much throw darts at the wall street journal and your clients accounts would be up 300% in a few short months...

When the market got crappy it was tough...when i was calling new prospects the last thing they wanted to talk about was the stock market and how they bought JDSU on margin at 100 a share...

My advice to you is this... tighen up your belt... Once you become an independent contractor its really hard to go back to the real working world and work for somebody in a 9-5 job. If you are marriend w/ kids i would reconsider and talk to your wife...

[samjjones]

I stopped reading after "guaranteed draw".

[Rhone]

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The gamble comes from the fact that I know absolutely nothing about the mortgage industry. According to the way I interviewed and the computer personality test I took my skills sets and personality fit this position very well.

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Mike, I work for a company that relies very heavily on the work of its sales group. I'm not in that group (thank God, I would be horrible at it), but I interact with them. That group also has very high turnover, and lots of monetary incentives built in to their salaries.

Anyway, my impression is that what makes for success there is not knowledge of the product (that can be learned) but rather it's just "salesmanship." If you can sell lemonade or widgets or whatever, you can probably sell mortgages. You'll learn the details of the industry in time and be just fine. If you can't sell, no amount of content learning is going to help you.

Good luck.

[SamIAm]

I'm going to try to use the phrase "subprime" at least twice today.
-Sam

[MikeSmith]

id say do it, my dad was a physics major out of college and is now the top dog of a company dealing with 401K's.

[eviljeff]

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id say do it, my dad was a physics major out of college and is now the top dog of a company dealing with 401K's.

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I was going to recommend not taking the new job based on previous posts, but then I read this one. you should definitely take it.

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id say do it, my dad was a physics major out of college and is now the top dog of a company dealing with 401K's.

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I was going to recommend not taking the new job based on previous posts, but then I read this one. you should definitely take it.

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Yep. If his dad can be a "top dog," anyone can.

[eviljeff]

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Yep. If his dad can be a "top dog," anyone can.

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also, not sure if you noticed, but his dad was a physics major out of college. you don't have to be a loan major.

[quadzilla]

I have worked straight commission jobs since graduating college. I worked as a loan officer for two years. We specialized in sub-prime loans but, did some conforming loans as well. My opinion of it was that there are easier ways to make the kind of money that you want to make. There are numerous downsides to this type of position.

1. With sub-prime loams you are dealing with the type of people that are sub-prime for a reason. Getting them to give you the documentation that you need can be very difficult. Many of them lie about thier situation (income, assets, etc.), and the is a huge falloff rate.

2. You depend on a lot of other people to make loans happen. There are underwriters, processors, appraisers, title comanies, etc. Any incometence on there part will hinder you.

3. To really make big money you have to take advantage of people. The guys making $200K are the guys that take full advantage of these people. They overcharge fees and inflate rates. This is the only way to make big $$$ as a Loan officer.

4. Paperwork is the worst part of this type of job in my opinion. It is a huge pain in the ass. For example, you are trying to push a big loan through and the underwriter says that you need to have an additional doc signed. It doesn't bother some but, I hated it.

I left the industry and went back to headhunting. Way more money and much fewer headaches. If your job could potentially top out at $500K why would you even think of doing this?

[Alobar]

I think it all comes down to whether you are a salesman or not....if not, then its a huge fat no.

Also unless you are young and unnatached it definitely doesnt even sound remotely worth it. Also the job you are in sounds like it is better long term anyway